


Our Frail Mystic Ships

by akisazame



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-06-04 20:32:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6674518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akisazame/pseuds/akisazame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Patran legend tells of a talisman that grants its user the power to change the past. Laurent finds it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There was an ancient Patran legend, told in scrolls and songs and whispers, of an artifact that could grant its user the power to change the past. In some versions of the tale, it was a golden brooch set with rubies; in others, it was a shining silver medallion; in still others, it was an heirloom diamond ring. Some said that it was a keepsake of the royal family, and others insisted it was created by a hidden coven of witches that inhabited the far east of the land. More often than not, most infuriatingly, the stories would end with a moral objection, or an insistence that its events were purely fictional.

Laurent had read every version of the tale, and heard of a few more, tales of tales. His uncle had called it a flight of fancy, a boyish preoccupation borne of Laurent's grief at losing both his father and brother at a young age, but even so he could be persuaded into indulging his nephew on occasion; more than once he had presented young Laurent with a weathered tome or old scroll, adorned with ribbon, with a brand new version of the story of the magical charm written inside.

"But do remember," the Regent would say, fondly petting Laurent's hair as the boy read, "some legends are merely legends."

Laurent, absorbed in his reading, ignored him.

\--

The plan was slow-going, once Laurent began to put it into motion. It began with a letter to the Patran royal family in Bazal, largely about affairs of state but with a small personal inquiry couched within the pleasantries near the end. The return letter was a disappointment, with no mention of Laurent's request, and Laurent began to ponder alternate methods of investigation; but then, one week later, a second letter arrived by private messenger, signed and sealed by Prince Torveld.

Their correspondence continued over the following year, scraps of information obfuscated within paragraphs of unrelated matters. Torveld's search on Laurent's behalf spiraled out from the capital in a thousand different directions; most were dead ends, as Laurent expected, but both he and Torveld persisted until finally, miraculously, the Patran messenger arrived at the palace in Arles with a small bundle wrapped in fine silks.

The object within was unassuming, as Laurent had expected; in all his years of scholarship, he'd learned that material details were the ones most often exaggerated. It was a simple copper talisman in the shape of an hourglass, which hung from a delicate chain. The chain was such that if Laurent were to wear it around his neck, the hourglass would rest against the center of his chest.

Laurent did not wear the chain around his neck. Instead, he folded the talisman back within its wrapping of silks and tucked it away beneath the false bottom of a drawer in his writing desk. He then sat at the desk and penned a return letter to Torveld, full of shallow sentiments and well-wishes. He did not mention the talisman at all.

Five more months passed as Laurent planned. The execution had to be perfect; there was no room for error. Nearly every version of the story was a morality tale, a stern warning against hubris, or avarice, or any number of other vices that Laurent was determined to avoid at all costs. A mistake at this juncture would mean losing what little he had left. And so he waited, and planned, and bided his time.

But for all that Laurent thought himself a master of Veretian treachery, his uncle was often one step ahead, one step away. The attack came in the night, a masked man who caught Laurent unawares in his own chambers. If Laurent had expected it, it would have been a simple matter to dispatch him; as it was, he only managed to overcome his assailant after a prolonged struggle. The man's knife had slashed an ugly hole in Laurent's jacket sleeve, cutting clear through the shirt beneath and into Laurent's skin, but Laurent had managed to grapple the weapon away with his good arm and get him into a unyielding hold.

Laurent held the knife to the man's neck. His own arm dripped blood on the tile. "You work for my uncle," Laurent said. It was not a question.

The man's voice was strained as he attempted to push himself back towards Laurent and away from the knife. "Y-your Highness, please..."

It had been a pointless exercise, to try and make him talk. Laurent slit the man's throat and tossed him to the floor.

With the immediate threat eliminated, the adrenaline hit him hard, and he staggered to his bed and leaned against the post, trying to regulate his breathing. The wound on his arm was beginning to sting. Luckily it had not been his dominant hand, or else the fight might have gone quite differently. Laurent's thoughts quickly spiraled in all directions, reviewing the last several weeks, looking for clues he'd missed that might have warned him of his uncle's intention. But he couldn't think of anything.

He couldn't think of anything, and that was what terrified him most of all.

Laurent took a deep, shuddering breath, and then began to work. He cleaned the blood from his assailant's knife, then used it to cut a length of fabric from his sheets, which he used to bandage his arm. The bleeding seemed to have slowed, thankfully; that small mercy would have to do. He tucked the knife into his boot, then kneeled beside the bed to fetch the sword he'd hidden beneath it. Once the sword was strapped on, he crossed the room to the writing desk and opened the drawer.

The hourglass talisman was still within the false-bottomed drawer, wrapped within its silks; for a panicked moment, Laurent thought of what might have happened had it _not_ been there and he'd had to start afresh, now with undisguised assassination attempts added to the list of his uncle's seemingly endless treacheries. But that specific outcome had been eliminated and was not worth thinking about. Not when he had to be certain to get this right.

He put the chain around his neck and closed his palm around the talisman. It felt unnaturally cool against his skin. He pressed it to his chest and closed his eyes as he spoke.

"I wish only to save my brother Auguste's life."

At first it seemed as though nothing happened. Laurent listened to his own heart beat once, twice, faster and faster.

Then there was a rushing in his ears, like he was riding a horse at a full gallop. It felt as though all the parts of his body were moving quickly in all different directions, tearing him apart. He opened his eyes to darkness, which managed to turn his stomach, so he snapped them shut again. The edges of the talisman cut into his palm as he tightened his fist around it.

And then, suddenly, a moment of silence. The warm feeling of sun on his face. Laurent opened his eyes.

There before him was Auguste, sword drawn, facing Prince Damianos on the battlefield.

Laurent moved instinctively, his body following the course of action he'd spent months planning, imagining, dreaming. The sounds of the battle seemed to fade in around him, then away as he made himself ignore them. His eyes were fixed on his brother, shining in the sunlight.

He stepped between Auguste and Damianos, drawing his sword as he did. The clang of metal against metal rang in his ears as he met Damianos's strike.

"What are you--" Auguste, from behind him.

"Brother, stand back," Laurent said. He ignored the wave of emotion he felt at hearing Auguste's voice, fought the urge to throw the sword aside and embrace the person he loved most in all the world, blinked back the tears that threatened in the corner of his eyes. He focused instead on the enemy prince standing before him, as large and threatening as Laurent had imagined him to be. "Damianos will kill you."

"Laurent?" He couldn't turn to see the look on Auguste's face, but the disbelief was plain in his tone. Of course; Auguste would not recognize Laurent was he was now, five years grown. At the Battle of Marlas, Laurent was only thirteen. "But you... this doesn't make any sense."

"I'll explain everything when you're safe." Without looking back, Laurent reached towards Auguste with his injured arm, motioning him to retreat. His fingertips just barely brushed against Auguste's armor. At the same time, he raised his sword towards Damianos. "I'm here to avenge my brother," he said, in Akielon.

Damianos's eyes widened for a moment in confusion. He was bleeding freely from his shoulder, where Auguste had wounded him before Laurent had arrived. In Veretian, Damianos said, "I have not yet bested your brother."

"No," said Laurent, switching back to his own language. "Nor will you."

His first attack was parried, as were his second and third. Laurent paused then, taking a step back; Damianos went on the offensive immediately, but Laurent had studied the Akielon styles of swordplay, and knew which attacks to expect. He let Damianos drive him into a slow retreat, but instead of stepping straight back, towards where Auguste had gone, Laurent took sidesteps, gradually circling around until his brother was in his peripheral vision. 

Laurent felt safer with Auguste in his sights, but he would not let himself be distracted. Instead, it bolstered him, a visual reminder of exactly for whom he was fighting, and exactly why he had done this. Years of planning were culminating in this moment. He kept his attention on Damianos, his dark skin shining from exertion, his shoulder dripping blood. They were both wounded, but Laurent still had the use of his free arm. He put both hands on the grip of his sword to block Damianos's next attack, then used the added strength to push back, sweeping Damianos's sword away to one side. Unbalanced, Damianos staggered; Laurent pressed the advantage, lunging in and pressing the tip of his sword to Damianos's throat.

But, as it turned out, Damianos's wounded arm was not as useless as it appeared; his hand darted forward and grabbed hold of Laurent by the throat. Laurent swallowed instinctively, his vision blurring at the edges as Damianos's impossibly large hand pressed down on his windpipe. His sword listed to the side, its point drawing a thin line across Damianos's neck.

Fleetingly, Laurent thought: _my own death is worth it, if it means Auguste can live._

Somewhere, distantly, Auguste shouted. Laurent could not make out the words, but the sound of it was enough. He rallied his wits and twisted in Damianos's grip, shifting his weight onto his left leg so he could kick out with his right, seeking to knock Damianos off his feet. It was only mildly successful, but enough that Damianos's hold on Laurent's neck loosened as he sought to right himself. Laurent leaned back, away from Damianos's hand; at the same time, he shifted his sword to his wounded arm, and reached out with his dominant hand, digging his fingers into the open wound on Damianos's shoulder.

Damianos's hand slipped free of Laurent's neck, and he scrambled to regain his hold, trying first for purchase on the laces of Laurent's jacket, then twisting his fingers into the delicate chain that hung from Laurent's neck.

Damianos pulled back. The chain snapped.

Again, Laurent was plunged into darkness, the simultaneous feelings of his body being stretched and crushed. He didn't understand why this was happening, not when he had been so close to vengeance. His stomach lurched, and he snapped his eyes shut. Air rushed in his ears. His hand was wet with Damianos's sweat and blood.

Then, everything went still and quiet. Too quiet. Laurent waited, unmoving, catching his breath.

He opened his eyes to an empty field, tall grass as far as the eye could see. The moon hung pale in the night sky, surrounded by a sea of glittering stars. Laurent was kneeling in the grass, sword still clutched in his weaker hand.

There before him, lying on his back, was Prince Damianos of Akielos.

Laurent struggled to his feet, planting the end of his sword in the soft dirt to use as leverage, and crossed the gap between himself and the body of the enemy prince. No, not merely a body; Damianos was still breathing, if shallowly. It mattered little; Damianos was defenseless, his sword lying in the grass a foot away. Laurent sheathed his own sword, then retrieved the Akielon one, which he pointed at Damianos's chest.

It should have been easy like this, the object of Laurent's hatred lying prone before him, unguarded, heart exposed. In wakefulness, Laurent had not dared to imagine the moment he might take the ultimate revenge upon Damianos, Prince-killer, but it had come to him in dreams, in an abundance of forms. More often than not, in those dreams, he and Auguste fought side-by-side until the Akielon prince fell to his knees, begging mercy which neither brother was prepared to grant. More often than not, it was Auguste who struck the killing blow.

Maybe that was why Laurent hesitated. Or perhaps it was the knowledge that, no matter what had happened that pulled himself and Damianos away from the fighting on the fields of Marlas, it meant that somewhere, certainly, Auguste was alive.

With a gasp of breath, Damianos regained consciousness.

Laurent watched in silence as Damianos's eyes opened, came into hazy focus on the sword still pointed at his chest, then refocused more clearly on Laurent. He saw the moment of realization, and waited for a moment of resignation which did not come. Damianos had assessed his situation, and chosen not to surrender. Foolish, but not entirely unexpected.

"What have you done?" Damianos said.

There was little point to explaining everything. Laurent held the sword steady, still aimed for Damianos's heart; he pressed his other arm against his side, in case it began shaking. He spoke in Damianos's own language. "You killed my brother, and now I will kill you."

"But I did not kill your brother." Damianos breathed evenly under the tip of the sword. "You made certain of that."

Laurent struggled to keep his tone from wavering. "You would have." He resented how petulant he sounded, but it was the truth. "You were about to."

"I challenged him, and he accepted," said Damianos. His brown eyes were very clear now, focused on Laurent. "Had I beaten him, he would have died honorably. That is how it is, in war."

"How _dare_ you." The words tore from Laurent's lips, in Veretian, before he could stop them. "You could not possibly understand," Laurent said, the impassioned note in his voice tempered into a whisper, "what it is like to lose everything you have in the span of moments."

"Are you truly Prince Laurent of Vere?" asked Damianos.

The question struck Laurent harder than any physical blow he'd been dealt so far. He could feel the color drain from his face, his whole body gone bloodless. The sword in his hand, for the first time, wavered from its mark.

"Because," Damianos continued, with the slow confidence of one putting together the pieces of a puzzle, "Prince Laurent of Vere is thirteen years old."

"You think me an impostor," Laurent said. His voice was trembling with anger, and his sword arm was trembling along with it. He sucked in a deep breath through clenched teeth, but could not quell the furious beating of his heart.

Damianos's expression was unreadable. "I think that you are Veretian, and nothing in Vere can be explained in the simplest way." Laurent opened his mouth to retort, but Damianos was still speaking, a bare smile twitching on his lips. "And I think that, in your single-minded fury at me for a murder I did not actually commit, you've failed to notice that your arm has miraculously healed."

It seemed an obvious bluff, but something in Damianos's voice put Laurent on guard. He spared only the quickest glance at his free arm, but the evidence was obvious: while the makeshift bandage remained, the blood that had soaked through the cloth was now gone, and the fabric of his jacket beneath seemed to be unmarred. His mind raced to make sense of it; he remembered the attack in the palace at Arles clearly, but the physical evidence of it had been erased, as though it had never happened. The injury had remained after he had made use of the talisman and arrived on the field at Marlas, but whatever had happened afterward--

"Someone is coming," said Damianos.

Laurent heard it as well, the sound of a horse cantering through the tall grass, coming closer. "Let them come," Laurent heard himself say, even as he focused on the noises in the distance, trying to determine how far away the rider was, how quickly they were moving, and how much time he had left. "Let them watch as I run you through."

"If you were going to run me through," Damianos said, "you would have done it already."

A shout, in a sharp, familiar voice: "Your Highness!"

Damianos was silent, his gaze locked on Laurent's. _Go on,_ his eyes seemed to say. _I dare you._

It should have been easy to kill Prince Damianos, alone and unarmed, with no witnesses. But faced with the task, after everything that had happened in the past hours, the past _years_ , Laurent could not make himself move.

Fortunately, there was more than one way to kill a man.

"I am here, Jord," Laurent called out. He moved his sword up, first, pointing the tip between Damianos's taunting brown eyes, a silent promise, then turned away, towards the sound of the approaching horse. "I have discovered an Akielon spy in our midst."


	2. Chapter 2

Jord had been unprepared to take a prisoner, but they had made do by tying Damianos's hands behind his back with Laurents now-unneeded bandage. Their return to the fort was slow, with Jord on foot escorting Damianos while Laurent took the horse; it had given Laurent a great deal of time to mull over what exactly had happened over the past few hours.

The hourglass talisman had seemed to work exactly as the tales had implied, taking Laurent back to just before the moment of Auguste's death and allowing him the chance to change his brother's fate. It was the events that came after which had been curious, the sudden shift from the fields of Marlas, sun-dappled and war-torn, to another field, dark and empty and silent. It was only when the spires of the fort came into view that Laurent realized that this, too, was Marlas, beautiful and overgrown, as though the battle had never happened.

Or, Laurent realized with dawning comprehension, as though the battle had happened many years ago.

There was no opportunity to speak to Jord during the journey, not while Laurent was on the horse and Damianos was within hearing. Besides that, if some curiosity of the talisman's workings had indeed thrown them forward in time, any questions asked along those lines would have to be very specifically worded in order to avoid suspicion. It might be best suited for covert research rather than direct lines of inquiry, which was something in which Laurent was thankfully quite proficient.

The fort of Marlas was much as Laurent remembered it, which was exactly why it seemed so wrong. He had not seen it since the days of the battle, when it had belonged to Vere and it, along with the lands of Delfeur, had been lost to the Akielons. He did not remember much of the days of retreat, mired as he was in grief for his father and brother; the days after that, while the Veretian forces had regrouped at Fortaine, were ones that Laurent did not wish to remember.

What Laurent did remember were the stories that came out of Fortaine and Ravenel and Acquitart that told of Delfeur's steady transformation into Delpha, province of Akielos. The Veretian banners were torn down first, likely burned or otherwise defaced in the midst of the barbaric victory celebrations; Akielon banners were quickly raised in their place, the leonine iconography incongruous with the elegant Veretian architecture. Over time, bits of the stonework were awkwardly carved away, the tile pulled from the floor, the murals erased from the ceilings. Each whispered account of the fate of the fort at Marlas was more heartbreaking than the last.

Laurent had heard of all of it, and yet here Marlas stood, filigree glittering in the moonlight, Veretian banners fluttering from its parapets. His heart swelled in his chest at the sight of it.

It was well into the night by the time they arrived in the courtyard; there were only a few guards on watch, clad in the deep blue that represented the royal house -- the same blue that represented Laurent's faction, in the world that he knew. Now, he realized with gut-wrenching horror, he had no idea who or what that blue represented.

Jord gripped Damianos by the tie at his wrists; Damianos had not put up any kind of struggle, much to Laurent's astonishment. He would have thought an Akielon in captivity to be more contrary about the whole affair. Jord stood at attention as Laurent dismounted, then asked, "What should be done with the prisoner, Your Highness?"

All at once, Laurent felt out of his depth in a way he'd not known in years. Not since the weeks after Marlas. He must have authority here, else Jord would not have asked the question at all, but Laurent had no idea how much. He felt suddenly weightless, floating and falling, a feeling not unlike that strange in-between space after he'd used the talisman, except this time he was clearly, certainly, still in reality.

"Lock him up," Laurent said, a mild punishment he knew would not be questioned. "He can be dealt with in the morning."

"You heard him." Jord shoved Damianos forward; Damianos stumbled, but did not fall. He glanced at Laurent as he passed, his expression weary, eyes dark with some unidentifiable emotion.

A soldier took the horse, and then Laurent was alone in the courtyard of a fort he barely remembered. A fort that, in his own memories, shouldn't even belong to Vere. Laurent felt as though he were thirteen again, a ship unmoored and set adrift. He caught the long dangling end of a lace on his sleeve and twirled it unthinkingly between two fingers as he contemplated his next move. He had spent the five years since Marlas cultivating knowledge, accumulating allies, identifying enemies; now, because of whatever had happened during his fight with Damianos, everything he knew was useless.

He looked up at one of the towers, where a single window was lit, shining like a beacon. If the remnants of his mental map held true, he knew exactly which chamber it was; what he did not know was which person might reside within. Before he could second-guess himself, he entered the fort proper and headed straight for that window.

\--

Laurent strode through the halls of the fort purposefully, sparing only the barest glances at the guards stationed near the doorways. He recognized many of the men; none of them reacted strangely to Laurent's presence, which was a small comfort; while he was confident that he could bluff his way through if a guard questioned him, it was of course preferable to not have to do so at all.

He did not stop until he reached the hall that led to the royal chambers. Once there, he found he had to pause while he was still out of sight of the guards at the chamber door. He was overcome, suddenly, knowing he was standing on the precipice; if all of this was the result of a divergence created by his own interference in the duel between Damianos and Auguste, this was the moment he would know for certain how the die had cast.

Gathering the remaining shreds of his courage, Laurent straightened himself and walked down the last hall to the royal chambers.

"We are not to be disturbed," Laurent said to the guards, who only nodded as they opened the heavy wooden door.

The light inside the chamber was a lamp, burning low in the late hour. Seated at the desk beneath the lamp, golden hair illuminated in its glow, was Auguste.

It was precisely the opposite from the moment in the field with Damianos, where Laurent had wanted his body to move when it would not. Now, every muscle in Laurent's body screamed with the desire to run towards Auguste, to embrace him with all Laurent's strength and never let go again. But what reason could he give for such a display? He forced himself instead to stand stock still, arms relaxed at his sides, utterly impassive.

When Auguste turned towards him, it felt as though Laurent was looking at the sun.

" _There_ you are," Auguste said, his voice a mix of relief and exasperation. He was not dressed for sleep, nor was he clad in full Veretian finery as Laurent still was; instead he wore soft dark pants and a linen undershirt, unlaced at the wrists and neck. He looked very tired, and Laurent felt it too, a heavy exhaustion that he'd fought to hold at bay. "To hear Jord tell it, you simply vanished from your chambers. Did you sneak out through the baths or through the window this time?"

Laurent's lungs felt very tight in his chest. It had been a game he and Auguste had played in their youth, sneaking around and through and out of the palace without being spotted. It was only after Auguste's death that Laurent realized that the guards were likely complicit in the game. Hearing Auguste speak of it now made Laurent feel cut open, as his arm had been in the future that no longer seemed to exist. The smile he forced onto his face felt foreign, an expression he had only ever shown to his brother and had fallen into complete disuse. "If I told you, that would be cheating."

Auguste laughed, loud and open and beautiful. "True enough. Whatever possessed you? I haven't thought about that game in years."

_Neither have I,_ Laurent thought and didn't say. _Because you were dead, and I may as well have died along with you._

Instead, Laurent said, "I trust that you've been informed about our Akielon prisoner."

The shift in Auguste's expression was absolute, his brow furrowed, his eyes gone hard. "There was a report from Jord, delivered through Orlant. Based on that alone, a single Akielon across the border does not trouble me. But there have been whispers as well, and those are troubling." He paused, purposefully, and Laurent felt then the gulf between this Auguste and the Auguste that he had known. Whatever had happened in Vere between the Battle of Marlas and now had taken its toll. "They say that the Akielon prisoner bears a resemblance to Prince Damianos."

"Is that so?" Laurent said, little more than a whisper. His mouth had gone suddenly dry.

Another pause, as Auguste gazed at Laurent. It was an expression that Laurent recognized, not from Auguste's face, but from his own. Auguste was thinking, calculating, playing the moves on the chessboard backward and forward and backward again. "Wherefore doth the venerated laurel bloom?"

Laurent blinked, startled by the seeming non-sequitur. His mind raced; Auguste was staring at him, as though he expected an answer. "What?"

"Wherefore," Auguste repeated, slowly, his blue eyes very cold, "doth the venerated laurel bloom?"

"I don't--"

It was all Laurent managed to get out before Auguste darted forward, quick as lightning, and pinned Laurent to the wall, a knife to his throat. "You are not my brother," he snarled. He leaned his full weight against Laurent, his forearm pressing into the center of Laurent's chest.

The impact had knocked the breath from Laurent; he thought, abruptly, that he must be dreaming, that none of this could possibly be happening because this was not the way he had ever imagined it happening. But it couldn't be a dream, because Auguste's face was too sharply in focus, the knife too cold against his neck.

Auguste's voice was little more than a hiss in Laurent's ear. Hearing Auguste speak that way was somehow more terrifying than the knife at his throat. "If you were my brother, you would have known the answer to that question." Another hard press against the wall; Laurent's vision was beginning to blur at the edges. "You would have known, because you were the one who came up with it."

Laurent might have laughed, had he breath in his lungs, because he had no doubt that another version of himself, one who'd always had Auguste as his stalwart ally, would have done that exact thing. But even lacking a secret code phrase, there were still things that only Laurent knew about Auguste. Laurent spoke very quickly. "When I was six years old, and you were seventeen, I would watch you from the castle when you went out hunting with Father. I begged you both to let me go, because I was learning to ride and thought myself very strong and clever. I was never allowed, of course, but one morning you woke me before dawn, and we took two of the dogs and your horse and my pony and we rode together just like we were our own hunting party. No one ever found out that we'd gone."

The words hung in the air between them for a moment. Auguste's hold on Laurent loosened, enough so that Laurent could breathe again, but the knife stayed where it was.

It would take something more, Laurent knew. "On the field at Marlas. I was there, as you see me now. You said it made no sense. I told you I would explain everything when you were safe." With each sentence, Laurent saw Auguste's expression slowly soften, transforming back to the face that he knew. "You're safe," Laurent said, and simply saying it was like his own personal epiphany. "Let me explain everything."

There was an imperceptible change in Auguste's face, like a dam breaking. He lowered the knife and stepped away.

Without Auguste holding him against the wall, Laurent found that he lacked the strength to hold himself upright any longer. He sank to the floor, nearly doubling over, and forced himself to breathe slowly. He placed his palms flat against the tile floor, and heard rather than saw when Auguste dropped to his knees beside him. "No one believed me," Auguste said, a dry humor in his tone. "Even the soldiers that were nearby, who saw it with their own eyes. You came from nowhere, claiming to be my brother. You saved me and then disappeared."

Laurent closed his eyes, but the tears slipped through anyway, sliding down his cheeks and splashing on the tile floor. "You would have died," he whispered, the words stinging his throat as he said them. "In my memory, you _did_ die."

And then he told Auguste the story, of the Patran talisman and of his wish to change the past. But despite his promise, he did not tell Auguste everything; he did not tell of his own grief, or of their uncle. Auguste was shining and strong, and the last thing Laurent wished to do was cause his brother pain. Auguste listened without comment, until the tale was finished, and even then he offered no comment.

Exhaustion and relief made Laurent more honest than he would otherwise have been. "You must think me very foolish," he said, not lifting his gaze from the floor.

One of Auguste's hands came to rest atop one of Laurent's. It felt very warm. "Yes," Auguste said, but when Laurent looked up at him, he was smiling.

"I don't understand what happened when I... disappeared, from the field at Marlas," Laurent admitted. After years of deceit, half-truths and outright lies, it felt strange to be forthright. "I fear that the version of myself you've known for the past five years may no longer exist."

"It seems that Jord's account was not as farfetched as I believed." Auguste pressed his lips together. "You don't remember any of it, do you?"

"I wish I did. I imagine those memories might be..." He trailed off, casting about for the most delicate word. "Preferable."

It hadn't been delicate enough. The look on Auguste's face was ugly, and Laurent couldn't bear to look at it. "You should know, then, that our uncle murdered our father."

The words themselves were not a shock, but the frankness with which Auguste said them drew Laurent's gaze back to his brother's face. "At Marlas? An arrow to the throat?"

"Just so," Auguste said, squeezing Laurent's hand reassuringly in his own. "He did not nock the arrow himself, but it was a plot of his making. You and I..." He trailed off, his voice cracking strangely. "We uncovered it together. He was tried and found guilty. Two years have passed since his execution."

Laurent's mind raced to process this new information, his skin tingling with a strange sort of panic. "Our uncle is dead," he said, as though saying it out loud would somehow make it real, transform it into something he could believe. "And you are king."

Auguste said, "I take it things are different in your memory."

The last of Laurent's defenses crumbled, and he threw himself forward, arm around Auguste's waist, face tucked against Auguste's shoulder. He cried as he'd not allowed himself since Auguste's death, sobs wracking his whole body, tears soaking into the linen of Auguste's shirt. It seemed to go on for a very long time; Auguste simply held Laurent through it, one hand warm against Laurent's back, the other still firm and strong over Laurent's hand, and that simple comfort in itself was overwhelming.

Eventually, Laurent ran out of tears to cry. Eventually, the exhaustion became too much to bear.

"You're really here," Laurent mumbled into Auguste's shirt, his fingers clinging and catching against Auguste's back.

"Yes."

"I changed it. I went back and I changed it. I stopped--" Laurent snapped his mouth shut, drawing suddenly back so that he could look Auguste in the eye. " _Damianos._ At Marlas, what happened to Damianos?"

"They thought me to be the victor," Auguste said. His voice sounded very strange, the emotion in it unidentifiable. "Afterwards, the Akielon army descended into chaos. Theomedes was furious that we would not return the prince's body. But there was no body to return. Damianos disappeared before my eyes, just as you did."

The final puzzle piece clicked into place. "Because I brought him here with me."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the middle section of this chapter (beginning with "Laurent spent much of the next several days in the library") has some references to canon abuse of a minor. it is brief and non-specific but please feel free to skip that section if you feel it might trouble you. the next section begins "At breakfast on the seventh day". take care of yourselves xo

The sun was high in the sky when Laurent woke, in a chamber he assumed was his own. He had little memory of how he had gotten there, exhausted as he had been; Auguste must have led him, a thought which suffused his whole body with warmth. He thought of their childhood, when Auguste would often find Laurent asleep in the library and would gently wake him and carry him back to his bed. He laid on his back amid the soft sheets, staring at the play of light and shadows on the ceiling.

Auguste, who had been dead in Laurent's memory, was alive.

And Damianos, who was believed dead in everyone else's memory, was also alive.

It would have been much simpler, Laurent realized, had he been able to follow through on killing Damianos. He allowed himself one moment to curse his own weakness, then compartmentalized it. It was not something he could change, short of using the talisman again.

He reached, unthinking, for the place against his chest where the talisman should have been, and was not. Even the chain was gone, likely yanked from his neck when Damianos had broken it. It was a foolish thought; even if he still had the talisman, the danger of reliance on magic was an extremely common moral in the stories he had read. This was a mistake it was still well within his power to rectify.

Laurent bathed, dressed, and took breakfast. He did not run into Auguste, which was fortunate. He did not speak to any of the guards, which, based on the lack of reaction on the guards' parts, he assumed was not terribly unlike him. After he'd eaten, he went alone to the prison beneath the fort.

The prison was dark and humid, lit by a single torch which sputtered slightly in the damp air. Only two guards were posted, one at the base of the stairs and another nearer to the occupied cell. He nodded to the first, then spoke in hushed tones to the second. "You will both stand watch at the top of the stairs. Do not let anyone in, especially not the king. You may not interfere unless I call for you. Is this quite clear?"

"Your Highness," the guard said, acquiescence implicit in his tone. Laurent motioned at the lock on the cell door, and the guard opened it, then pressed the key into Laurent's palm before he left, leading the other guard up the stairs with him. When they were both out of sight, Laurent turned to face the prisoner.

Damianos was properly restrained now, his wrists cuffed behind his back and further chained to an assembly attached to the far wall. His ankles were similarly cuffed and chained to the floor. The wound in his shoulder had been hastily bandaged, but obviously not stitched or treated; the blood that had soaked through was wet and glistening. There was a tray of food and a cup in the corner of the cell, untouched.

The look in Damianos's eyes was like a rabid animal. The beat of Laurent's heart sped up, thunderous in his ears.

"Come to have another go at killing me?" Damianos's voice was all raw edges, and it hurt Laurent's throat just to listen to it. "These odds may be closer to your favor. Unless you plan to threaten me before turning tail and running again."

"What does it matter?" Laurent spoke in Akielon, as Damianos had. "Your countrymen already believe you to be dead. Whether I kill you or not is immaterial." He saw the disbelief flicker in Damianos's eyes, before it was subsumed. "Did no one tell you? Prince Damianos of Akielos died on the field at Marlas, killed in honorable combat by Prince Auguste of Vere. Those Veretian snakes didn't even have the dignity to return the body."

"You're lying," Damianos shouted, his whole body lunging forward with the force of his anger. The chains creaked, but held fast; Laurent stood still, impassive, not even allowing himself to blink. "My father... the king will not stand for this treachery. He will come for me. He will storm the gates and take me back, and take your fort along with it."

Laurent took one step closer, so his face was mere inches from Damianos's. He smiled, and allowed himself the small pleasure of watching each muscle in Damianos's face shift and contort in reaction. "Poor, pitiful barbarian. It has been five years since the Battle of Marlas. No one is coming for you. Not anymore." He reached up, still smiling, and ran one finger gently along the line of Damianos's jaw.

Damianos flinched back at the touch, turning and snapping his teeth at Laurent's fingers. Laurent, expecting it, had already drawn his hand away. In the same motion, Laurent used his other arm to strike Damianos in the stomach, knocking the air from his lungs. The chain slackened as Damianos backed away, gasping.

"Control yourself," Laurent said. The sight of Damianos staggering and helpless before him was almost intoxicating; his mind raced, thinking of all the methods of exquisite torture he could employ. He thought of the guards at the top of the stairs, wondered if they could come if Damianos cried out. They were trained for this, certainly, to keep quiet and still in the face of all manner of deviant behavior.

There was a long moment while Damianos recovered. Laurent waited, watching the rise and fall of Damianos's broad shoulders in the flickering light. It went on for much longer than Laurent would have expected. When Damianos finally looked up at Laurent, his face was strangely calm. "Akielos lost the battle, then?"

"Naturally."

"Were there many casualties? Did Vere press the advantage? How much was lost?" There was a pleading edge in Damianos's voice that Laurent rather enjoyed.

Laurent did not have the answers to any of Damianos's questions, but he did not want Damianos to know that fact. A weakness left unconcealed was a weakness that was bound to be exploited. Instead, Laurent said, "You speak to me as though we are equals. We are not. I am a prince and you are no one. I am a man and you are a ghost."

"Then kill me," said Damianos. "If I am so worthless, then do as you said you would on the field. Kill me, and avenge your still-living brother." His eyes swept down Laurent's body, then back up. "But that is not your intention, because you are unarmed."

The knife Laurent had stolen from his assailant, in a present that no longer existed, was still tucked inside of his boot, but it was very like an Akielon to only notice what his eyes could see. Instead of drawing the knife, as he'd been half-convinced he might, Laurent took a step back, leaning against the open doorway of the cell. "Akielons must have a very simple concept of revenge," Laurent said, crossing his arms casually. "I mourned the loss of my brother for five long years, Prince-killer. If you think I will be satisfied to simply slit your throat, you are sorely mistaken."

Something changed in Damianos's gaze. "Slit my throat, and not run me through?"

"Neither. Try to keep up." The more Laurent talked, the easier it became. He was in his element now, the life he had lived for the past five years, words that twisted and slithered like snakes in the grass. "I thought it would be a kindness, to inform you of your situation, but now I see I needn't have bothered. How foolish of me, to treat a barbarian civilly."

"Chaining royalty and locking them behind bars is civil in Vere?"

Laurent closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between two figures, exaggerating the gesture. "If words cannot convince you, perhaps actions will." He turned then and left, closing and locking the cell door behind him.

The guards stood at attention when Laurent approached. If they had any reaction they had to whatever they'd overheard, it was expertly masked. Laurent returned the guard's key, then looked at each of them in turn. "I will be sending a physician to treat the prisoner's wound. The sight of it disgusts me. Apart from the physician, no one is to see the prisoner. No one may speak to him. Continue to bring him food, but remove it if it is not eaten within a reasonable amount of time. Watch him, but do not look at him. Do not so much as stand within his sights. Is this quite clear?"

"Your Highness," both guards said, in perfect unison.

\--

Laurent spent much of the next several days in the library, reading any documents he thought might provide relevant information on the five years he had missed. There were several accounts of the Battle of Marlas, which Laurent read and reread, comparing old memories with new memories, his own knowledge with the established mythology surrounding the fight between Prince Auguste and Prince Damianos. There were also accounts of King Aleron's death, as well as his brother's trial, in which Princes Auguste and Laurent had presented a truly staggering amount of evidence which proved their uncle to be complicit in regicide.

He had not expected the onslaught of emotions he felt upon reading the first of those accounts, a bubbling of hatred and revulsion that started in the pit of his stomach and rose quickly. He dove beneath the table at which he'd been seated, both hands covering his mouth, trying to swallow back the bile in his throat. He thought of his uncle in the weeks after the king's death; Laurent's young mind had thought it kind, that his uncle was putting aside his own grief so as to be a comfort to his nephew. But that too had been false, a manipulation. When Laurent used the talisman, he had only changed Auguste's fate; in his own time, too, his uncle had been responsible for King Aleron's murder.

The contents of Laurent's stomach spattered on the floor, loud and vulgar to his ears. He coughed and spat until there was nothing left, then shifted his body to rest his cheek against the cool tile.

Laurent realized, with slow spiraling horror, that there had once been a version of himself who had not known the depths of his uncle's depravity. He realized, too, that through whatever trick of magic had sent him forward in time, he had destroyed that version of himself, and left this one behind.

For the first time since he'd set this plan into motion, he felt something resembling regret. He thought, this time quite seriously, about returning to the fields, retrieving the talisman, and finding a way to make things right.

There were footsteps in the doorway. Laurent's stomach lurched dangerously again.

"Laurent?" Auguste.

Laurent opened his mouth to respond, but his throat burned and no words came out. It was immaterial; Auguste could see him clearly from the doorway, huddled beneath the table, and he rushed forward, falling to his knees and reaching out a gentle hand to brush hair back from Laurent's face.

Auguste's voice was soft, like a dream. "Are you okay?"

The Vere from which Laurent had come was endlessly complicated. It was filled with backwards talk, double dealings, alliances of convenience. Lying came naturally to Laurent, but it was often complicated, a tangled web of deceit that curved and curled and doubled back upon itself. Keeping it all straight was a challenge; catching someone in a lie was often the first step to their downfall. Telling the truth was childishly simple by comparison.

But now, here, with Auguste kneeling before him, brow knit with concern, thumb rubbing a slow circle on Laurent's cheek, Laurent found that the truth was more complicated by far.

"I felt unwell," said Laurent, "but I'm better now."

\--

At breakfast on the seventh day since Laurent had changed the past, Jord said, "The prisoner is calling for you, Your Highness."

Laurent looked up from the orange he was peeling, a polite smile masking his irritation at the subject of Jord's sentence. "Oh? How charming. Let him yell himself hoarse."

"Your Highness," said Jord, a hesitant edge to his words, "with all respect, we've been letting him. He's been yelling for three days now. The men are drawing straws to take the guard shifts down there. None of them want to listen to a man scream for hours on end."

"Then find new guards," Laurent said. He focused back on the orange in his hands, tearing violently at the peel. On the periphery of his vision, Jord flinched.

"Laurent," Auguste began, then stopped when he saw the dangerous look in Laurent's eyes. Auguste was the only other person who knew the prisoner's true identity; Laurent did not want to have a detailed conversation about him in front of so many people. "Be nice," he finished instead, mildly, his mouth a flat line. He looked down at his plate and tapped it twice with the tines of his fork. If Jord noticed, he said nothing.

They met in Auguste's chamber after breakfast, as Auguste had signaled; it was a system they had worked out in childhood, which Laurent had nearly forgotten but, in this version of history, was still well-used. By the time Laurent arrived, the guards had already been dismissed. Auguste was reclining on a couch at the far end of the room, but Laurent could see the lines of tension in his limbs. "Well," Laurent said, folding his arms across his chest, "say your piece, brother."

Auguste straightened, his expression pensive. "Laurent, we have no reason to continue holding him."

It was nothing Laurent didn't know, a fact that had been lurking in his mind since he had ordered the prisoner's isolation. Damianos had not killed Auguste; there was no crime for which he could be tried or convicted. As far as the men knew, he was a stray Akielon soldier, found in the field and captured, his agenda utterly unknown. There had been hushed talk of the prisoner's resemblance to Prince Damianos, but everyone knew he had been dead for five years, slain by their king's hand. That talk had since been usurped by rumors about Prince Laurent's intentions.

"You are frightening the men, Laurent," Auguste said, giving voice to Laurent's own suspicions. "This sort of cruelty is..." He trailed off, uncertain, but Laurent knew what he had been about to say.

"What a pity, then, that I am not the Laurent you once knew." It was not what he had intended to say. He saw the way the words impacted, dagger points in the surface of Auguste's face.

After a moment, Auguste's expression shifted, and he reached out a hand towards Laurent, palm up. "You can trust me, you know. I'm not your enemy."

Laurent stared at his brother's hand for a long moment. His first instinct was mistrust, and he hated himself for it, hated that the reality he knew had cultivated this in him. It took too much effort to unfold his arms and place his hand in Auguste's. Auguste tugged gently, and Laurent stumbled forward before realizing his brother's intention, and came to sit beside him on the couch.

This close, Laurent could hear when Auguste swallowed, the sound of words he began to say and then held back. Instead he said, "You should hear what Damianos has to say."

Hearing Auguste speak Damianos's name made Laurent's heart twist in his chest, wrung out like a rag. He wanted to argue, to tell Auguste that he never wanted to see Damianos's face again; he wanted to shout, to insist that Auguste never speak the name of the man who had, in another life, killed him. But Auguste, so gentle and kind, did not deserve any of that.

"I will hear him out," Laurent said, and Auguste squeezed his fingers gratefully, "and then we will decide what to do with him."

He made to rise, but Auguste's hand held fast, keeping him in place. "There is more you should know, before you speak with him. About Akielos, and their king."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because I've had a few comments asking about it: there will be no explicit discussion between Auguste and Laurent regarding the Regent's abuse, or anything else that happened to Laurent in the previous (canon) timeline. this is not because I don't feel that the conversation is important, but it is simply not something I feel I'm personally equipped to handle as a writer. if you need that closure for yourself, please consider that conversation as having taken place after Auguste encounters Laurent in the library in this chapter. thanks for your understanding


	4. Chapter 4

Laurent could hear it even before he descended the stairs that led to the prison cells. From this distance it sounded like an animal's howl, wild and angry, but as he got closer the sounds demarcated themselves into poorly enunciated words, repeated over and over again, in Akielon.

"Prince Damianos of Akielos demands audience with Prince Laurent of Vere!"

It was pathetic that, even after a week of forced isolation, Damianos still clung to the illusion that his name and title meant anything. While it was unlikely that any of the guards understood enough Akielon to understand the entirety of Damianos's entreaty, certainly the enemy prince's name was obvious enough that it would not have escaped their notice. Or perhaps Laurent was overestimating the amount of attention that the guards were paying to the prisoner, which was strangely pleasing to consider. One thing was very clear: the message was not meant for the guards, but for Laurent, who understood Akielon. Perhaps, too, Laurent realized with a shudder of revulsion, it was meant for Auguste.

Laurent paused halfway down the stairs, mapping out the upcoming conversation in his mind. Perhaps it was presumptuous to even call it a conversation, considering the way the prisoner was currently conducting himself; Laurent wondered if any exchange of words he'd had with Damianos thus far could be properly qualified as a conversation. Every interaction between them had been a fight, teeth bared. It was likely folly to assume that this would be any different.

There was, of course, no one in the prison when Laurent arrived, apart from the one who was locked and chained. Damianos's voice was deafening this close, but Laurent could hear the strain in it; it had been three days, Jord had said, since the shouting had begun. Only one of Damianos's arms was chained now, likely in deference to the wound on his shoulder, properly bandaged as Laurent had requested. He was undressed above the waist, likely stripped by the physician and then left that way so as not to further disturb the wound; Laurent might find the exposed expanse of muscles to be intimidating, if Damianos were not restrained. As before, there was a plate of food on the floor, untouched.

Damianos cut himself off mid-shout when he saw Laurent emerge from the archway at base of the stairs. "You finally show yourself," he said, still in Akielon. There was a dry quality to his voice; Laurent wondered if Damianos had eschewed water as well as food.

The key to the cell was tucked away in Laurent's pocket, but he did not use it, instead leaning on the stone wall next to the bars, arranging himself casually. "Well," Laurent said, matching Damianos's language, "since you asked so nicely."

"As though Veretians deserve niceties," Damianos shot back, not spitting but sounding as though he might have, had he the saliva to spare. "As though I should look kindly upon the man who kidnapped me."

"I wonder," said Laurent, extending one arm gracefully to examine the laces at his wrist, "is it still kidnapping if the victim is a corpse? Certainly there is another word for that, seeing how you Akielons are so fond of killing."

"I killed no one." Damianos's voice was venom.

Laurent sniffed disdainfully, not lifting his eyes from his sleeve. "You killed plenty. Unless you believe every Veretian soldier you killed on the field to be less than human."

"And if I do believe that?"

Well, then. Laurent blinked deliberately, lowered his hand, and turned his head to look down at Damianos with narrowed eyes. "Then we have nothing to discuss." He pushed himself away from the wall and began to walk back towards the stairs.

He made it two steps before Damianos called out, "Wait."

Laurent stopped, didn't turn, simply waited. He was very patient.

There was a sound of metal against metal, the chain scraping against itself as Damianos moved. "I'm," Damianos began, and didn't finish. The chain made another sound before he started again. "What you said, before. Have five years really passed since Marlas?"

"What reason do I have to lie?" Laurent only turned part way, so he could see Damianos out of the corner of his eye. He was pressed back against the far wall of the cell, back hunched forward, face angled down towards the floor. His eyes were shrouded by his unruly mop of hair. His left hand was gripping his right wrist, just above where the chain was cuffed.

"Veretians always lie," Damianos said to the floor.

"When I lie," Laurent said, turning around fully and crossing his arms, "I generally do so more convincingly."

"They truly think me dead." He said it as though it was the first time he'd entertained the notion in earnest. As though resigning himself to the fact that this was reality.

Laurent ran his tongue along his bottom lip, considering. The torchlight cast everything in shadows, wavering and flickering like ghosts. Laurent rather felt like a ghost, a version of himself who was not meant to be here. He wondered briefly if Damianos felt the same way before dismissing the notion entirely. Even as he was, displaced and at odds with this version of the world, he was nothing like Damianos.

"That is my understanding of it. Yes."

There was a long silence, punctuated by the crackling of the torch on the wall and a steady drip of water from the ceiling. It had begun to rain after breakfast, while he and Auguste had conferred in Auguste's chambers. Laurent wondered where the leak was, wondered how hard it must be raining to cause a drip like that. Useless thoughts, all of them.

He could leave now, he realized; Damianos would be unlikely to stop him a second time. He could leave and find Jord, or one of the other guards, and tell him... what, exactly? That he wished for the prisoner to be killed? To be released? Considering those options, he found he didn't wish for either of them. Auguste had been right, when he'd said there was no reason to continue keeping Damianos as a prisoner, but Laurent found he was loathe to let him go.

So, instead of leaving, he walked back to the cell and unlocked the door. Damianos stared up at him, one eye visible through the curtain of hair, as Laurent stepped into the cell, closed the door behind himself, and leaned against the bars, hands tucked behind his back.

"I am from this time, but a different future," he began, his voice sounding flat and detached to his own ears. Damianos's visible eye widened, just slightly. "In the world I know, you killed my brother. So I found a way to change history. To stop you. You understand this much, I imagine."

Damianos didn't speak, perhaps couldn't speak, but he nodded.

"I used a talisman to accomplish this. When we fought, on the battlefield, you tore it from my neck. I believe this is why we are here, now, though I don't understand why you came with me." Laurent wet his lips and took a breath. "The talisman is gone. I sent men into the fields to look for it. It was trampled, or stolen, or buried in the earth. Whatever the result, it means that this time, here and now, is where we must stay."

"Then you meant it," Damianos said, his voice cracking around the words, "when you said that we lost the battle. That they believe me dead. That my father will not come for me."

"Your father is dead," said Laurent.

He watched the words impact. Damianos staggered back towards the wall, then slumped against it, sliding to the floor. His unchained hand was pressed to the floor, arm shuddering beneath his weight. "Why didn't you tell me?" Damianos asked, his words the faintest sound on his breath.

"I did not know," Laurent said, truthfully, "until this morning." He wondered if it would have changed anything, had he known, and decided that it wouldn't.

When Auguste had told him of the state of Akielos this morning in the royal chambers, Laurent had imagined staring Damianos down as he howled and gnashed his teeth like the animal he was, and telling him, in no uncertain terms, that the father he had thought would come for him was dead. Theomedes had been dead, according to Auguste, for over two years. Whether it was old age, or the crushing grief of losing a son, or some sort of foul play, no one in Vere had been able to determine, preoccupied as they had been with the trial and execution of King Aleron's brother. "I'd thought you might look into it," Auguste had said, in the strange way he did when he meant the version of Laurent that he'd known, who this Laurent had usurped, "but you never seemed interested. Perhaps there is only so much court intrigue a boy can take."

"Yes," Laurent had said, distantly. "Perhaps there is."

Instead of dwelling on those feelings, Laurent had imagined this moment, when Damianos might understand, at last, that he was truly alone. It was the moment Laurent had dreamed of for a week -- had, more abstractly, dreamed of for five years -- the moment where Laurent's vengeance would be exacted. He'd imagined just what was happening now, Damianos crumbling before him, falling to the floor of the cell in a heap, utterly disarmed. If Laurent wished it, he could end it now; he could pull the knife from his boot and draw it across Damianos's neck. There would be no struggle, he knew. Damianos might even welcome it.

He'd imagined it, and anticipated it. But now, here, staring it in the face, Laurent found that he disliked it.

When Damianos spoke, his voice was very small. "So it is Kastor on the throne, then."

"Yes," Laurent said. _Who else?_ he didn't say.

Damianos looked up from the floor, and Laurent could practically see all of the questions swimming behind his eyes. Damianos opened his mouth, once, only to close it again.

It did not take long for Laurent to tire of watching Damianos's prolonged internal struggle. "Truly, you know your brother more closely than anyone in Vere," he said. "You are best equipped to understand what type of king he has become."

Something in Damianos's face softened, as though he might laugh at a joke Laurent had made. "I had never thought about it before."

"That was foolish," Laurent said, the faintest hint of exasperation leaking into his voice. The idea of not planning for every possible contingency was foreign to him. "Did you truly believe yourself so solidly placed in the line of succession that you did not consider any alternatives?"

"The only alternative to consider was my death." However improbably, Damianos smiled when he said it, a clear and deliberate upturn at the corner of his mouth.

"And it appears that alternative has come to pass." Laurent watched as Damianos's smile only widened, showing a sliver of white teeth. "You smile at your own death?"

"Because it is ridiculous," Damianos said. "Death is death. I shouldn't have to be dealing with its repercussions."

Laurent could think of at least six different scenarios that would require personally dealing with the repercussions of one's own death, but none of them were particularly pertinent to the discussion. Instead he said, "There is nothing left for you to deal with. Your father is dead. Kastor is king. It is done."

The amusement on Damianos's face dropped away, as though it had never been there at all. "Even if I did go back to Akielos," he said, slow and deliberate, as though he were thinking it through aloud, "they would never believe it's me. If Damianos had lived, he would be twenty-four years old." He fell silent, his gaze drifting from Laurent to some fixed point somewhere above the floor.

There was a long moment where Laurent simply looked at Damianos. To his thirteen-year-old self, when he had watched the duel between Auguste and Damianos from afar, Damianos had seemed impossibly large, extraordinarily strong, and much older than nineteen. Five years had passed for Laurent, and while Damianos was still large and strong, the gap between him and Laurent had narrowed. Just one week ago, Laurent reminded himself with no small amount of pride, he had fought Damianos, and might have won, if not for the interference of the talisman.

"The talisman you used." The echo of Laurent's own thoughts was more effective at snapping him out of his reverie than Damianos's voice alone might have been. "You are certain it was lost?"

Laurent was momentarily disarmed; he had not anticipated this line of inquiry. "Yes."

"But you obtained it in the future," Damianos went on. "Or rather, the present. The present you came from. Which isn't this one."

"Do try not to hurt yourself," Laurent said.

If Damianos heard Laurent's rejoinder, he didn't acknowledge it. Instead he said, "I don't think your talisman was lost at all. It's not here because you haven't found it yet."

There was a dull ache in Laurent's hand, and he realized it was from clenching his fingers around the bars of the cell door. He wasn't certain when he had started doing it, but Damianos's statement had caused his grip to tighten. His suggestion was a possibility that had not occurred to Laurent, even after days of consideration; of all the possible fates for the talisman he had used to travel into the future, he had never thought that perhaps it had never made the journey into the future at all. Or perhaps, just as the version of himself that had spent the last five years living with Auguste, it had simply ceased to be.

It seemed almost plausible until Laurent remembered the knife in his boot, the one he had stolen from his uncle's assassin -- an assault that never happened, in this changed future. If Damianos's theory was correct, then that knife should not exist either. Yet Laurent still had it, tucked snug against his calf, in case he should have need of it.

He realized that Damianos was gazing at him, expecting some kind of answer. "If that were the case," said Laurent, very carefully, "then what does it matter? It doesn't change anything. Either way, the talisman is not here."

"But you know where it is," Damianos went on. "You know where it should be."

All at once, Laurent realized what Damianos was suggesting. He released his grip on the cell bars and felt the muscles in his hand twinge and relax, then took a step forward, so he was standing over Damianos. With the edge of one boot, he nudged Damianos's leg, like he might scold a distracted hunting dog to bring it back in line. "You think that I would let you use it. You think that I would take you to the talisman, so you might use it to return to the past and keep your brother from the throne."

"You got what you wanted," Damianos said, the hoarseness in his voice almost overshadowing an edge of desperation. In Damianos's mind, Laurent realized, this was his only chance. "Your brother lives, and is on the throne, just as you wished. What harm is there in letting me reclaim what is mine?"

Another nudge with his boot, firmer this time, closer to the knee. "And what proof do I have that you would not change what I did? Go back and slaughter my brother at Marlas as you had before, or in some other way?" With the power to change the past in his hands, the possible methods of betrayal were infinite; it was sickening to consider. Laurent was suddenly gratified that his uncle had never believed in children's tales.

Damianos barked out a laugh, then coughed, choking on it. When he looked up again, Laurent saw tears in his eyes. "I... I can't pretend to know exactly how you felt, losing your brother, because I never lost mine. But after all you've told me today, I can begin to imagine how it might have been. What I cannot imagine having to feel this, every day, for five years and more, knowing there might be a way I can change it, and not being able to do it."

For the first time, Laurent considered what he would do if their situations were reversed. If he had been the crown prince, suddenly displaced from time and presumed dead, what would he choose to do? Would he live with the new reality presented to him? Or would he find some way to change things back to the way they should be? He thought of his uncle, so desperate to rule that he would kill his own brother and manipulate his own nephew, and his stomach churned. He didn't know if Kastor was anything like his uncle, but it was the only comparison he had to make, so his mind kept making it even as he searched desperately for another option. Laurent knew then, without a shadow of a doubt, that if he were in Damianos's place and his uncle were in Kastor's, Laurent would do anything it took to make things right. But he was nothing like Damianos, and he hoped very much that Kastor was nothing like his uncle.

But even so, Damianos was still Akielon. He was still an enemy of Vere. And even in this new future, where Damianos had not killed Auguste, Laurent still lived with the scar of that memory on his heart.

"Even if I had the talisman," Laurent said, "I should not have to explain to you why I cannot trust you with it."

"I know that." Damianos's voice was little more than a mutter, through gritted teeth. "I know that, but..."

"But you think I should forgive you?" Laurent cut in, the low bubbling of anger and frustration reaching a breaking point. "You think I should hand a weapon to my enemy because he feels he has been wronged?"

Damianos's eyes flashed. Tears still glistened in the corners of them, illuminated by the light of the torch. He stared into Laurent's eyes as he said, "I have been wronged, just as you once were. Can't you see that?"

The conversation was going sideways; Laurent could almost feel it unravelling in his hands, evaporating in the heat of his own outrage. He had let this go on too long. It had been a mistake to come at all, despite what Auguste had said. Carefully keeping his fury in check, he simply narrowed his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and controlled. "What I see, Prince-killer, is a man attempting to bargain for his life when he is already long dead."

He did not wait to see Damianos's reaction; it would only serve to fuel his foul mood. Instead he turned and opened the door to the cell, let himself out, and locked it behind him. He expected Damianos to say something, to stop him as he had when Laurent had begun to leave before, but he said nothing. The only sounds were Laurent's boots on the stone floor, the crackling of the torch, and the increasingly insistent dripping of the rain.


	5. Chapter 5

After his retreat from the underground prison, Laurent went to the library. There was little left on its meager shelves that he had not already read, between childhood visits to Marlas and his research of the past week, but it was the only place in the fort where he could find any semblance of solace. Living at Marlas oftentimes felt like living in a graveyard, or a museum. The chambers that were meant to be his were the worst of all, a constant reminder of the fact that there had once been another version of himself sleeping in its bed, sitting on its couch, writing at its desk. Another version of himself had once lived here, but Laurent's arrival had snuffed him out. The library was neutral enough that he could pretend it was another library, in another fort that had always belonged to Vere, or perhaps a small annex of the library in Arles. Still furious, with both Damianos and himself, he had snatched a book from the shelves and gone to sit on the bench embedded in the library window, tucked away from everyone else in the fort.

The sky was so rain-dark that he had not noticed the shift from day to night, and he had missed dinner. Just as it had so often been in his childhood, Laurent had spent too long hiding himself away and Auguste had known just where to find him.

"We cannot stay much longer, Laurent," Auguste said, his voice barely audible over the continuing rain.

"So you've said," Laurent replied, his gaze fixed on the book in his lap. It was a tome of children's tales, opened to a story of the Patran artifact; he'd read this version many times before, and his eyes were unfocused, the words smudges on the page. The only reason he had not put it aside was so he could look at something other than Auguste.

He didn't have to look at Auguste to know that he was frowning. Auguste frowned so rarely that one could practically hear it in the cadence of his voice. It was something Laurent had remembered often, over the past five years. "We were only meant to stay in Marlas for a day or two. I have to return to Arles."

"Go, then." Laurent pressed his eyes closed. His skin felt overwarm, as though Auguste's gaze was heating him.

A sigh, very soft. "I'm not going to leave you here. Not unless you're leaving as well."

Being with Auguste after all this time made Laurent want to react in ways he hadn't in years, with childish gestures he'd long since trained away. He was struck with the terrible urge to curl in on himself, to draw his knees up under his chin, to tuck himself away into the corner of his seat in the window of the library. Instead he forced himself to blink until the words in his book came into focus. Everything he could think to say in response was self-deprecating. "I don't understand why you came along at all," he said eventually, a reply designed to deflect blame.

Auguste saw right through him. "You said we would decide what to do with Damianos. You can't keep avoiding it."

The instinct was to deny it, but Laurent knew that Auguste was right. He should have decided as soon as Auguste had told him, days ago now, why they were at Marlas and not Arles. Admitting as much aloud, admitting to any kind of weakness, felt like having a dagger in his throat. "I tried to kill him, but I couldn't. I tried to break him, but he will not break. I don't know what else to do."

He chanced a glance at Auguste's face, but instead of the pity and sadness he'd expected to find there, he saw only a neutral expression. Laurent knew from experience the sort of careful cultivation required to keep one's face like that, despite whatever else one might be feeling. Now that Laurent had acknowledged his presence, Auguste kneeled down beside the bench, so their faces were level with one another. Laurent wanted to look away, but didn't. "The way I see it," Auguste said, his voice even and measured, "we have several options. You have tried two yourself." There was a pause, as Auguste took a long breath. Something flickered behind his eyes. "If you would prefer it, I could--"

" _No,_ " Laurent cut in, before Auguste could finish his terrible sentence. He would have to be dead and buried himself before he would see Auguste become a murderer.

"Okay," Auguste said. He pressed his lips together, obviously pensive. "That removes a few options. So, either you free him, or you keep him."

Laurent had expected the first suggestion. Auguste, his gentle older brother, the peacemaker, would have come to that conclusion before all others. Laurent had expected to have to argue with Auguste about it, to painstakingly explain all the reasons why he could not let Damianos run back to Akielos, even deprived of any obvious claim to the throne. The groundless capture and torture of even a common Akielon soldier by a Veretian prince would likely not go unpunished by Kastor or one of his kyroi. By letting Damianos go free, Vere could only lose, with no opportunity to gain.

But, while Laurent had entertained the idea of simply keeping Damianos as a prisoner indefinitely, he had not expected Auguste to propose that same idea.

Laurent made himself speak the spirals of his thoughts aloud, for Auguste's benefit. "We could leave him here at Marlas. Guarded, of course. Or you could take him with you back to Arles. Find some menial task for him to perform in the palace. Any knowledge you might glean from him would be outdated, but..." His words tapered off when he saw the look on Auguste's face, and he realized exactly what Auguste had meant by his second suggestion. Laurent thought abruptly of Damianos's words. _I don't think your talisman was lost at all._ "I can't take him with me."

"If you keep him in line, he'd make a fine bodyguard." Laurent looked back down at his book as he tried to keep the feeling of vicious betrayal from reaching his face. He failed at it, because Auguste said, "Don't make that face."

"What reason would he have to guard me?" Laurent asked. The edge of his voice curled into the semblance of a laugh, as though he were telling a joke. He barely remembered what it felt like to tell a joke, but this felt like one. "I meant to kill him, and you think to send him off with me, so he might slit my throat in the night?"

"I don't believe he would do that." Auguste went quiet. Laurent stared at the printed words before him. _'The ring glittered brightly on the slave girl's finger, and suddenly she was somewhere else.'_ In this story, Laurent knew, the slave girl would die at the end. "He wouldn't kill you," Auguste said, "because you have something he wants."

Laurent didn't mean to slam the book shut, but the abrupt motion as he turned back towards Auguste managed it for him. He remembered the drip of rain in the prison, and how it had seemed much louder than it should. "You were listening."

"Your Akielon is very good," Auguste said, one corner of his mouth slightly upturned. Laurent shifted his gaze from it, uninterested in whatever amusement Auguste was gleaning from this. "I was surprised. My vocabulary is serviceable, but my accent is atrocious." The remainder of Auguste's mouth made to follow the corner's example, so Laurent looked down instead, at the starburst embroidery on the shoulder of his brother's shirt. "Did you truly think me incapable of deception?"

Laurent thought for a moment about what it must have been like when he and Auguste had banded together to outsmart their uncle. It was a feat that had seemed insurmountable when it was Laurent alone, but together they had managed it. He imagined huddling together with Auguste in a library much like this one, sometimes whispering, sometimes writing so they would not be overheard. _An ear can be bought,_ Laurent heard clearly in his brother's voice, _but parchment in a fire cannot._ It almost seemed like a memory, except that Laurent knew it had never happened to him. Besides, that wasn't something Auguste would ever say.

Or would he?

"An ear can be bought," Laurent repeated aloud, under his breath, "but parchment in a fire cannot."

Auguste's eyes widened, the blue sparkling in the lamplight. "Do you...?" He trailed off, hopeful.

"I don't think I do," Laurent said, looking away so he didn't have to see whatever expression Auguste would make next. He had grown weary of being a disappointment. "I just thought of it. I don't know where it came from."

"You said it first, a few months after Marlas. Just after you discovered that our uncle had bought the ears of two of my men." Auguste's voice was bright and fond and proud. Laurent felt warm and cold all at once; the praise was directed at him, but it wasn't truly his to claim. He was coming to hate it, he realized, this feeling that Auguste saw Laurent's shadow before he saw Laurent himself. He loved his brother, he had done all of this for his brother, but somehow it didn't feel like enough. Laurent felt as though _he_ was not enough.

He set the book aside and pushed himself to his feet with little warning; Auguste had to lean back quickly to keep from being trampled. Laurent crossed the library diagonally to another window, this one with a writing desk in front of it. Parchment was already laid out, as though he'd planned for it, despite the fact that he had not. Or perhaps he had, in another life.

He wrote quickly, the scratching of the quill the loudest sound in the room. Auguste approached with quiet footsteps, but hung back just far enough so that he could not see whatever Laurent was writing. This was familiar to Auguste, Laurent realized, and his heart twinged with the thought of memories that were not his own.

When he was done, he left the parchment on the desk, ink still damp, and left the library without sparing so much as a glance at Auguste.

_A,_

_I will leave with Damianos at dawn. Do not see us off._

_If I fail, Torveld can help you find the talisman._

_Parchment in a fire cannot be bought._

_L._

\--

Laurent knew that he should sleep, but instead he laid in bed, staring at the rain patterns reflected on the ceiling of his chamber. The beginning of his journey with Damianos would be miserable if the rain did not let up, but he supposed that would be fitting. He'd made a promise to Auguste, written and signed, and he wasn't going to back out on it on account of poor weather. He'd dealt with far worse.

The rain was still pouring down and the sky had not yet begun to lighten when Laurent finally rolled himself out of bed. He should be packing, he realized, but none of the possessions in the room felt as though they belonged to him. Using them while he was at the fort was one thing, but taking them away seemed like stealing. It was strange, he realized, that he wouldn't have batted an eye at stealing from anyone else, but taking anything from this room felt like a terrible transgression. It felt as though he was stealing from the dead, but he wasn't stealing from anyone at all.

He convinced himself that the lack of sleep was making him foolish, and filled two knapsacks with traveling clothes. He dressed as comfortably as he could while still maintaining the shell of clothing to which he'd become accustomed; the shirts and jackets in his wardrobe at Marlas had a good deal fewer buttons and laces than his wardrobe in Arles, and he was unsure whether that was a function of the location or in some incremental change in his own sensibilities. As always, he hid his stolen knife in his boot as a small bit of security; he would bring a sword as well, but it wasn't often prudent to wear a sword in mixed company. A third knapsack was packed with medical supplies, parchment and ink, and a few days' worth of rations from the kitchens. He took all of this out to the stables, along with two bedrolls and a tent, and explained his intent to the nearest guard, who took Laurent's explanation in stride. Perhaps Auguste had forewarned them of Laurent's imminent departure; Laurent was trying very hard not to think about Auguste at all.

There was only one guard posted at the entrance to the underground prison. Laurent did not speak a word to him, but only held out his hand for the key and then waved the man away. Jord would be glad to know that he would no longer have to coerce the men into taking the prison guard shifts. Laurent walked as silently as he could down the stairs to the prison, his footsteps masked by the now-familiar sounds of the rain and the torch.

Considering the hour, he was not surprised to find Damianos sleeping, his back against the wall, chained arm suspended over his head. The position seemed painful, Laurent thought, then immediately chastised himself for thinking it. The level of discomfort was clearly not enough to keep Damianos awake; his mouth was slightly open, and he was breathing deeply, making a sound that was not quite a snore. Laurent thought of Damianos in the field, lying on his back, unconscious, defenseless. He thought, as he always seemed to do, of the knife in his boot, and how easy it would be to end all of this now, for good.

 _If you were going to run me through,_ Damianos had said, _you would have done it already._

It was not cowardice that stayed Laurent's hand, nor was it pity. It was obligation. It was propriety. It was honor. It was all the qualities that Laurent had long associated with Auguste, and not with himself.

The key was noisy in the cell's lock, and the sound of it roused Damianos instantly. His posture went defensive, rolling up on the balls of his feet, his free arm poised to strike despite its injury. Laurent was unthreatened; he was armed and unfettered while Damianos was not. Damianos couldn't even reach the door from where he was, not without overextending himself. Laurent opened the door wide, then leaned against one side of its empty frame. He held up the key between two of his fingers, looking at it instead of at Damianos. He could see, from the corner of his eye, that Damianos was watching the key as well.

Laurent let the silence stretch for a time. As it stood, with Damianos in chains and Laurent holding the key, he was secure in holding the advantage. Once he unlocked the shackle, he wasn't entirely sure what to expect.

"What are you playing at?" Damianos's voice was low and dark.

"As it turns out," Laurent said conversationally, in his own language, "you've made me late for an engagement."

Damianos snorted. "And you've come to bid me a heartfelt farewell?" He had switched to Veretian as well, and his accent sounded sharper than Laurent remembered. He thought of Auguste's compliment, and his confession; Laurent, who never did anything by halves, wondered at the arrogance of not properly learning the language of one's enemy. "Shall I kiss your boot, perhaps?"

"It is your barbaric culture that keeps slaves, not mine." Laurent rolled his wrist, letting the key drop into his palm. Only then did he turn his gaze to Damianos, who was still coiled and tense, like a lion ready to pounce. "Would playacting as a slave improve your decorum? Or would you be as poorly-mannered a slave as you are a prisoner?"

"You will not bait me," Damianos said, though it was clear he was already baited. He had been baited from the moment he'd awoken. Perhaps he had been baited before he had walked onto the field at Marlas. Perhaps baited was his perpetual state from birth. Damianos's dark eyes narrowed to slits. "I know you will not kill me, because you are a coward. So what is your game?"

Laurent bristled at the insult, but did not let his body react to it. Instead he tossed the key in the air once, twice. "As much as I would enjoy leaving you here to rot, I would prefer to not let you out of my sight. You will accompany me."

Damianos's face froze. He stared up at Laurent, disbelief blotting out his vitriol. "You have spent days trying to convince me I am worthless, and now you think to disguise me as part of your retinue?"

"No," Laurent said evenly. "You _are_ my retinue."

"What do you gain by it?" Damianos fired back, the torchlight flickering in his eyes. He had slowly strained forward over the past several moments, and the chain creaked, having finally reached its limit. "After all you've done, do you truly think yourself safe alone with me?"

A smile ghosted over Laurent's lips as he remembered Auguste's words. He stepped forward and pressed one finger of his free hand to the bristly underside of Damianos's chin, tipping his head up, so he was gazing into Damianos's eyes. "You won't kill me, because I have something you want."

"What could you possibly have that I want?"

Laurent leaned in until he could feel Damianos's breath, hot on his face. "The talisman is in Patras. And that, my dear barbarian, is where I am taking you."


	6. Chapter 6

Auguste did not come to see Laurent off, but Jord did.

"Your Highness," Jord said, his tone clipped, as though he was struggling to keep himself in check, "are you certain you wish to travel alone?"

"I will not be alone," Laurent replied. He inclined his head towards Damianos, who was fastening a bag to one of the horses' saddles and trying to pretend he wasn't listening to every word Laurent said. "As you well see, I have tamed the savage beast. Two horses will travel much faster than a retinue."

"I don't mean to question your logic, Your Highness," Jord said in a voice that very much suggested the opposite. "You need not take all ten men, as was planned. I only mean to suggest that taking one or two might be..." He paused, his eyes flickering to Damianos. "Prudent," he finished. Laurent imagined it was the nicest word Jord could think of.

Laurent crossed his arms, but also let a bemused smile dust his lips, his body language a study in contrasts. In truth, he was mostly nervous that Jord would delay them long enough that Laurent might end up seeing Auguste once more, despite his efforts to the contrary. It wouldn't do to lose his nerve now, at the zero hour. Laurent said, "I imagine that you would prefer to be among those one or two men?"

Jord at least had the decency to look sheepish at being caught, despite the transparency of his inquiry. When he spoke again, it was in a whisper. "Does your brother know you are doing this, Laurent?"

The sudden shift to a more familiar form of address caught Laurent off guard, but he did not let it show on his face. Only Auguste and Damianos knew about the talisman and its effects; it was important that Laurent take any other variance from the world that he knew in stride. He could certainly extrapolate how Jord, loyal and steadfast in his own memory, might become a close personal confidante in another version of events. He did not think about how his own life in Arles might have been different with any sort of confidante at his side. Instead he leaned in conspiratorially and whispered back, "It was my brother's idea, in part."

"Figures," Jord muttered, then sighed. "It would be foolhardy to argue with either of you, though I imagine Auguste might be convinced."

"He might," Laurent said, tone even despite the constricting feeling in his chest, "but this part of the plan was mine."

Jord's brows knitted together. For a moment, Laurent could envision it perfectly: Jord, long-suffering, catching Laurent as he attempted to sneak out of the palace in Arles through the training courtyard. Laurent, perhaps a year or two younger than he was now, crouching on the rooftop and smiling down at Jord, utterly carefree. Jord, with the air of a man who tires of finding himself in the same position over and over again, asking, 'Does your brother know you are doing this, Laurent?'

Laurent, in reality, closed his eyes and pressed his thumb and forefinger against his eyelids. It was becoming more and more difficult to determine whether any of this was only his imagination, or something else entirely.

Whatever Jord had said was lost to the distraction of Laurent's mind. "Your Highness?" he pressed, louder, formal again for the benefit of the Akielon prisoner.

"Forgive me," Laurent said, voice very low. He snatched for the first plausible excuse, which was only a truth by coincidence. "I've not slept well."

The hard edges smoothed away from Jord's face in an instant. "So you will not be convinced?" He phrased it as a question, but Laurent knew that Jord didn't mean it as one. The time for a heated argument in the abating rain had passed.

In response, Laurent only shook his head. "We should depart, if we wish to begin regaining lost time on the road. I trust you will deliver my best wishes to my brother the king."

Jord gave Damianos another fleeting glance; Laurent pretended to not notice, though he suspected that Jord already knew. "Safe travels, Your Highness." 

\--

In another time, under different circumstances, Laurent would have found the first day of their journey exhilarating. The inclement weather kept him from pushing his horse to her full potential, but he drove her at a speed that made her wet mane whip against Laurent's face. He felt wild and free, unrestrained in a way he hadn't felt in years. He could lose himself in this feeling, he knew, if he allowed it, but doubts and memories and false memories kept drifting into the blank spaces of his mind, pulling him back to reality.

The knowledge of Damianos's presence tugged at Laurent as though they were tethered together; Laurent imagined he could feel the warmth radiating from Damianos's body, as illogical as that was given the physical distance between them. He began the journey periodically looking behind him to ensure Damianos had not fled, but he did so less and less as the day wore on. It was not a matter of trust, but a matter of heightened awareness, like a third eye on the back of Laurent's head, always wide open and fixed on his hated companion.

The rain let up by midday, but the damage to Laurent's planned itinerary had already been done; they were several hours out from the nearest village by the time they had to stop for the night. He'd hoped to keep their usage of the tent and bedrolls to a minimum, but continuing to push the horses would likely have worse consequences than one night of sleeping on the rain-softened ground. He led his horse off the road into the first clearing he saw, confident that Damianos would follow without needing to look back. Without so much as a glance at his traveling companion, Laurent dismounted and began to set up camp for the night.

His awareness of Damianos's existence was bordering on distraction now that they were no longer in motion. Matters were not helped by the fact that, once Damianos had completed the simple task of tending to his horse, he made no move to assist Laurent in the construction of their campsite. The tent was small, a basic frame with cloth the likes of which would ordinarily house common soldiers. A tent fitting Laurent's station would have drawn unwanted attention and been impossible to erect without the typical retinue, while the simple shelter allowed for a level of subterfuge that Laurent rather enjoyed.

It was not that Laurent required assistance, but simply that Damianos chose to watch, and do nothing. He could feel Damianos's eyes on him, burning like brands.

When the hammer slipped in Laurent's damp palm and caused him to miss his mark on the tent peg, Laurent bit his tongue to keep from shouting. He did not move, eyes fixed on the dirt in front of him. "I did not realize," he said, his voice carefully steady, "that Akielons so enjoyed watching."

There was a long silence; even without looking up, Laurent knew that Damianos was still watching him. Finally, in an equally careful voice: "In Akielos, we would have ordered the slave to build the camp."

Laurent tightened his grip on the hammer. "You are not my slave. That is barbaric."

"Then what am I?" There was a note in it that made Laurent look up, finally. He expected to see uncertainty on Damianos's face, or sorrow, or anguish. Instead, he saw a fierce determination. "If I'm meant to travel with you, this should be settled. I'm bound to stay by your side, by your word alone, but I am not a slave. I am not a prisoner, either, since you removed the shackles. If you'd meant to travel as royalty, you would have taken a retinue. If you'd meant to travel with speed, you'd have gone alone. You yourself said that you have little to gain by letting me retrieve the talisman you used." He waved his hand at the half-built tent. "What is the point of this, then?"

For the briefest moment, Laurent felt himself unravel under the weight of Damianos's questioning. He could come up with any number of trivial answers, half-truths or outright lies, that would certainly sate the curiosity that had built up over the course of a day's ride. But in that brief moment, Laurent wasn't entirely sure what the truth was.

The moment stretched too long. "So," Damianos said, his gaze affixed to Laurent's face, "will it be with the sword?"

The non sequitur caused Laurent's thoughts to stutter. "What?" he blurted, instantly regretting it.

"Or," Damianos went on, securely seizing the advantage he must have realized he had, "will it be with the dagger you've hidden in your boot?"

Laurent's eyes darted to said boot, which he realized too late would only confirm the location of the dagger. He had no idea whether Damianos had actually seen the knife, or if it was a bluff; now, of course, that difference was immaterial. "What are you implying?"

Damianos took one step closer, a silent challenge; in the same moment, Laurent rose to his feet. "It's obvious, isn't it?" Damianos said, his voice suddenly lower. "You've brought me here to kill me without witnesses."

The reality of it crashed over Laurent like a wave. He could run Damianos through like he'd meant to on the fields of Marlas, or slit his throat, or sever an artery and leave him to bleed out slowly and painfully. He could do anything in this moment and no one would know.

Except Auguste. Auguste would know, without Laurent ever saying a word. Auguste would sniff out Laurent's guilt like a hunting dog.

Laurent pressed his lips together; as close as they had become, he could see the way that Damianos's face reacted to even this small movement, eyes widening, then brow furrowing. He could practically see the threads of thought woven behind Damianos's brown eyes. When Damianos spoke again, his voice was lower still, barely even a whisper. "It hadn't even occurred to you." Not a question. A statement of fact.

Fury snapped like a twig. "What do you know about me, Former Prince of Akielos?" Laurent countered, reveling in the way Damianos blinked and recoiled, just slightly. "Do you know a single thing about Prince Laurent of Vere? Or was it Auguste alone you studied, so you could slaughter him on the fields of war? Was I discounted because of my youth? Was I not a threat to you? Did you think it would be a kindness to leave a child be after murdering his brother?" His voice was wavering with anger barely contained; Laurent closed the remains of the gap between them, leaning so close to Damianos's face that he could feel his own breath rebounding from Damianos's skin. "I promise you: that was a terrible mistake."

Laurent spun on his heel, pacing away and back to the half-constructed tent. He no longer cared whether Damianos was staring at him, or whether he might deign to assist. He wished that he had never consented to take Damianos with him on this journey to Patras. He wished he had been able to devise an alternate plan to keep Auguste from even considering committing murder on Laurent's behalf. He wished he hadn't faltered on the fields of Marlas, had run Damianos through and been done with it, so that Auguste would not have become involved at all.

But it did not matter what Laurent wished, because he did not have the talisman to grant it.

He was so consumed with his own thoughts that he did not notice Damianos had approached until the hammer was pried from his damp fingers. Laurent turned to see Damianos kneeling beside him, an indiscernible look on his face. Without a word, he began to hammer the tent peg into the ground. Laurent simply watched, stunned, as Damianos methodically continued the construction of the tent.

Several minutes passed, punctuated only by the sound of Damianos's hammer and the ambient noises of the forest around them. Laurent eventually pulled himself away from the scene to unpack the remainder of their supplies, divide rations, gather kindling for their fire, anything at all to keep from focusing on Damianos as he silently performed the work that Laurent had accused him of shirking. Every time that Laurent looked in that direction now, Damianos's eyes were focused on the tent, never so much as glancing at Laurent.

The tent was nearly complete and Laurent had just ignited the campfire when he heard Damianos's voice. "I know that Prince Laurent of Vere is thirteen years old." Laurent looked up at the sound, but Damianos was still staring at the ground, as though he were speaking to no one at all. "He is uninterested in learning to fight, as he prefers reading to swordplay. He is slight but not frail, simply untrained. He would make an easy target, were I to have the choice between him and Auguste." A pause; Damianos set the hammer on the dirt, then put his palm down next to it, flat against the earth. The light from the fire cast his face in shadow. "There was no honor in such a fight. It would have been murder."

Laurent's mouth was very dry. "An honorable fight beforehand did not make my brother's death any less of a murder." He'd meant there to be vitriol in the words, but there was none.

"Your brother _lives,_ " Damianos said. His fingers flexed in the dirt, digging in, and at last he turned his head to look at Laurent, his eyes very dark in the twilight. "How long will you continue to exact your revenge for an offense that never occurred?"

_Until I'm satisfied,_ Laurent thought, and didn't say. He did not think he would ever be satisfied. "I don't trust you," he said instead, and there was more than one meaning in it.

"That is one thing on which we can agree," said Damianos.

They lapsed into silence, and there was more said in the nothing between them than they had managed to say in the entirety of their argument. Laurent sat beside the crackling fire and ate his portion of the night's rations; Damianos finished his work on the tent, then remained sitting beside it, his gaze periodically drifting towards Laurent but then away again. Each second of Damianos's attention was a hornet's sting.

The night grew dark, casting their camp in flickering shadows. "I will take first watch," Laurent said, growing weary of their standstill. When Damianos did not respond, Laurent added, "I will not kill you as you sleep," and he was uncertain who he was trying to convince.

He expected an argument, but instead Damianos simply got to his feet and went into the tent without a word. There was a brief period of rustling, but that quickly died away, leaving only the snap of the firewood, the idle sounds of the horses, and the beating of Laurent's heart. He couldn't explain the feeling that slowly overtook him, starting somewhere behind his ribs and radiating out until his whole body felt both very heavy and very light.

It was not loneliness. That was a feeling he knew deep in his core, the thing he had felt most acutely over the past five years. This was something else, adjacent but unknown.

He was tired, Laurent reasoned, exhausted from a sleepless night and a long day on the road. It was making him detached from his own sense of himself. This strange feeling would pass once he was properly rested.

The moon made its slow path across the sky, the fire dimmed to embers, and Laurent realized that he had spent most of the night not watching for bandits or wild animals, but watching the pale silhouette of the tent. Slowly, tentatively, he got to his feet and crossed the space between the remains of the campfire and the tent's door flap; there he stopped, his heart suddenly in his throat. He couldn't trace back the flow of thought that had brought him to this moment, couldn't name his intention. The night was not yet half done, yet here he stood, uncertain.

Laurent sat on the cold earth outside of the tent and closed his eyes. He could hear Damianos's breathing from within, but he could not tell if it was the even breathing of sleep. His own breathing shuddered at first, unwilling to let itself match Damianos's rhythm, but gradually slowed, lulled, beguiled.

When Laurent opened his eyes again, the sun was just beginning to peek through the trees. He came awake instantly, furious with himself for failing at the simple task of watching camp for half the night; once the initial wave of anger faded, Laurent realized that the tent's door flap hung open, and the tent itself was empty.

In the first moment, Laurent was relieved. It was the logical conclusion of events for Damianos to have fled, disappearing into the night, perhaps taking a share of the rations. He would have left the horse, naturally, as its noise would have given Damianos away; a quick glance confirmed that both horses remained tethered where Laurent and Damianos had left them the previous day. It was all quite rational, which was why Laurent was quick to accept it and move on. It was the exact type of plan he might have executed, were their positions reversed.

But then Damianos emerged from the woods, hair damp from washing, and Laurent was reminded that his own logic did not apply.

\--

The sky was still clouded over, but there was no rain, which made the second day of their journey much more agreeable than the first. Their camp was swiftly packed, the evidence of its existence mostly erased, and the day's rations were divided beforehand so that they could ride without cease for the entirety of the day. The plan was to recover the time lost previously and reach the town of Châtelain, which would bring them back in line with the itinerary Laurent had originally intended. Despite sleeping on the cold ground outside the tent rather than in a bedroll, Laurent felt refreshed, and he found himself much less easily distracted by Damianos's presence than he had the previous day. He still felt the same relentless invisible tether that he'd sensed before, but it was easier to compartmentalize, and he focused instead on the rays of sunlight peeking through the clouds, the feeling of the breeze through the loose tendrils of his hair, the powerful muscles of his horse beneath him.

They came into Châtelain just past dusk, when most people had returned to their homes and begun to light lanterns in their windows. It was strange, to be in these towns which Laurent had known to be lost to Akielos, perhaps renamed, their Veretian citizens displaced, yet here, in this version of history, they had stayed exactly the same, as part of Delfeur. In this history, Delpha had never come to be.

There was an inn along the main road, and this was where Laurent led them. He flashed his signet ring and asked the proprietor if there was a single room with two beds available; he was fairly certain that this was not a normal request, but the woman was overwhelmed and disinclined to refuse her prince's request. She sent someone out to care for the horses, then provided Laurent and Damianos with large bowls of stew.

Without the distractions of the journey, Laurent found himself again acutely aware of Damianos, sitting across the table from him, looking into his bowl as though he was unsure of what he was meant to do with its contents.

"Have you forgotten how to eat?" Laurent said, voice low so as not to draw the attention of anyone else in the common area. He was quite sure that anyone who had seen his signet earlier was already paying attention, already wondering about the identity of the strange Akielon boy traveling with the king's younger brother, but Laurent would prefer to keep the gossip as non-specific as possible.

Damianos looked up from the bowl, and Laurent was both startled and pleased by the flash of anger on his face. "It was rather hard to eat with both of my hands chained," he snapped, speaking in Veretian, loud enough that two or three heads swiveled in their direction.

"Dogs manage to eat without use of their hands," Laurent hissed in Akielon.

"I will not save face for you," said Damianos, still in Veretian, louder still. There were not many people in the inn's common room, but all of them were watching Prince Laurent and his Akielon now. "In Akielos, we would never treat a Veretian the way I was treated, prisoner or no."

"Your Highness," came a woman's voice from the doorway, and Laurent was relieved to see it was the inn's proprietor. "The room you requested is ready."

Laurent rose with as much dignity as he could muster, his dinner forgotten. "I will be retiring," he said to the proprietor. He inclined his head slightly to her, then to Damianos. "My companion seems to be rather irritated with me. I trust he will behave with more decorum in my absence." He narrowed his eyes at Damianos, a silent threat; Damianos narrowed his eyes as well. Laurent snapped the moment in two, turning on his heel and breezing through the doorway.

The prepared room was on the second floor; it was likely the largest in the inn, and one of the beds had obviously been moved in from a different room, a bedside table haphazardly pushed into the far corner to make space. Laurent closed the door, locked it, then realized his error and unlocked it. His skin felt very hot; he was still angry, he knew, and now that he was alone he let it consume him. He pressed both palms against the wood of the door, watching the way his arms trembled against it, and forced himself to steady his breaths.

Every moment in Damianos's presence only served to incense Laurent further, which seemed to incense Damianos in turn. He could feel the fire of it raging in his chest, each of them stoking the other. It was only a matter of time until they burned down everything around them.

Laurent breathed slowly and thought of Auguste. His brother Auguste, the peacekeeper. King Auguste of Vere.

Auguste would not have let it come to this.

Then Laurent thought of the other version of himself, the one who had spent the last five years with Auguste rather than under the yoke of their uncle, and wondered if he would have let it come to this. A useless thought, because that version of Laurent was as good as dead.

Thoughts. Laurent clenched his hands into fists against the door. Thoughts were getting him nowhere. What would matter in the end were his actions. What mattered were his results.

He did not undress for bed, but unlaced his sleeves and removed his boots, then laid down with his back to the wall. Sleep seemed impossible; he did not know how long he stayed there, motionless, with his eyes tightly closed before he heard the sound of the door opening. He only opened one eye just enough to confirm it was Damianos. There was the sound of the door being latched, the sound of footsteps across the room, the sound of weight sinking into the opposite bed.

Laurent kept listening. He wasn't sure what he was hoping to hear. At some point, in the midst of the listening, he fell asleep.

\--

This time when Laurent woke, it happened slowly. The bed was pleasantly warm, and while he remembered quickly where he truly was, he could imagine himself beneath the thick blankets on his bed in Arles. He imagined himself in a castle where he did not have to worry about the schemes of his uncle, where he did not need to be constantly wary, where he could sleep in peace.

He opened his eyes, and saw that Damianos was gone.

Unlike the previous morning, Laurent did not react strongly. If Damianos had decided to flee, he would have done so after their argument in the common room; there was no logical reason why he would have come back, to sleep in the presence of the very person from which he meant to escape. From another perspective, if it was meant to be a ruse, Damianos had been far too subtle about it.

So, rather than react, Laurent laced his clothing, put on his boots, and went downstairs. The female proprietor was not there, replaced by a young boy, not more than thirteen. The boy had clearly been informed as to the status of their guest, because his face lit up when he saw Laurent. "Your Highness," he said, voice still high like a child's but properly deferential.

"Have you seen," Laurent began, then stumbled briefly over which words to use next. It would have been prudent to have chosen an alias for Damianos beforehand. "My companion," he finished.

Luckily, the boy seemed to comprehend Laurent's meaning. "He came down about an hour ago. He went out, but told me he would return." The boy looked down at the floor, then back to Laurent. "Won't you have breakfast while you wait, Your Highness?"

Laurent saw no reason to refuse, especially since he had not given himself much opportunity to eat the night before. The boy presented him with an array of fruits and a bowl of porridge, then sat upon a stool on the far edge of the common room, watching with large, curious eyes as Laurent began to eat.

At first, Laurent believed the relaxation he felt to be a product of circumstance. It was the first morning he had spent in over a week where he was not concerning himself with Damianos, following the first full night of sleep he'd had in a similar amount of time. He still mistrusted Damianos, still uncertain of his intentions in both the short and long terms, but somehow he found it easier to view his situation objectively without Damianos in his presence, goading him by his mere existence. For the first time since using the talisman -- no, for the first time since Auguste's death, in Laurent's own time -- Laurent felt something resembling peace.

It was false, of course. He should have guessed it immediately, but it was not until he recognized the numbness in his hands and feet that he identified it. By then, it was too late.

The boy on the stool merely watched as Laurent tumbled to the floor and lost consciousness.


End file.
